Our Mission

As we build a path to a sustainable financial future for the City of Spokane we must reconnect with the City's mission statement. It was developed and ratified over a number of years by many City Councils and Mayors and reads:

Delivering efficient and effective services requires thoughtful evaluation of and improvement in each line of service to ensure that we are, in all cases, delivering the best quality service possible for the dollars the Citizens of Spokane entrust to us.

Our Guiding Budget Principles

Our City Council has also established a set of core budget principals that guide our conduct in developing responsible, sustainable budgets across the organization. Our budget principals are:

Don't spend more than you take in

Don't spend one-time money on ongoing expenses

Maintain prudent budget reserves

Maintain strict controls on hiring and spending

Fund the highest priority services first

Our Budget Philosophy: Affordable, Accountable, Aligned

In addition to the principles we adhere to when developing the City's annual budget, we adopted a philosophy during the 2013 budget process to help guide our decisions and better serve our citizens. That philosophy calls on us to consider affordability, accountability and alignment in all of our budget deliberations and actions. To provide the best service, we can't run government the way we always have. We have to tear down the silos, change the culture, and focus on our core lines of business.